


Life of the Party, Can't Stop Grinnin

by o_antiva



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Clan Ordo (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 18:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_antiva/pseuds/o_antiva
Summary: The future of Mos Pelgo is cast in doubt when a mysterious client drops an astounding bounty on its marshal. Chaos erupts as every gunslinger on the planet puts Cobb Vanth in their sights-- and he thinks he'll make it out all right, til that Mandalorian clan joins the purge from offworld. Turns out them boys don't play.Time to die as he lived, like a stupid son of a bitch.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	Life of the Party, Can't Stop Grinnin

It was just before true dawn in the eastern vap cluster, Cobb and Issa-Or on the schedule together. Just like old times.

It was a glowing morning with the sand starting to gleam all pink and orange. Even the bulk and the spires of the old vaps looked rosy in the light, except for the blue-green dribbles on Unit 1-Besh. Yeah that would be the safety dye leaking from the chiller coils, which is why the two of them were out here in the first place. 

Fuckin Unit 1-B, it’s always somethin with you ain’t it?

For the first half hour or so, going by his busted chrono, nobody says much of anything. Washing down mouthfuls of protein bar with caf from travel mugs. Crunching crumbs down over the tool spread. 

Cobb and Issa-Or have known each other for the better part of thirty years, so it’s a companionable silence they’ve settled in to share together. Just the vastness of desert silence, the hum of the vaporators, and the whirr of the drills as they draw screws out of the housing.

Go figure but it’s a bitch getting 1-B open. “Who worked this one last? You got the log up, Issa-Or?”

“Why, what’s the matter, the screws stripped again?” 

“Never mind, I know it’s Michkee done it.” Cobb rolls his eyes. “Like he’s always doin. I guess he figured 1-B wasn’t enough of a mess to work on.”

“I think it’s time we just scrap the whole thing to the jawas. Throw in Michkee for a package deal.”

“Just recycle him down to water and base components. Tempts me, some days.” It takes some effort, but Cobb gets 1-B open. The door pops to let out a blurble of safety dye. “Force be thanked.”

Little while after, Issa-Or asks him, light as anything, “Hey, you ever wonder about that Mandalorian?”

And light as anything, Cobb says back, “Which Mandalorian is that?” 

Issa-Or looks up from her crouch. She’s giving him the eyebrow. Some twi’lek don’t have any eyebrows, or they draw them on, but Cobb knows an Eyebrow when he sees one. “I like how you tried to play that casually,” she says. “Like I could be talking about anybody else. You’re gonna give yourself away, Cobb.”

“Oh, that one.”

Her undamaged lekku flickers with amusement. He catches its movement from the corner of his eye. He’s busy with shutdown on Unit 1-B, so he can get the cracked coil out. 

Now he hears the low rumble of fun in her voice. “I think he liked you,” she says.

“Most people do, if they just give me a chance.”

“He went from threatening to shoot you dead in the street to leaving you to raise his child.”

Well, well, Issa-Or. This how it’s goin to be. Cobb knows how she gets. Oh she’ll act above it all, looking all tough in her shitkicker boots and her jacket. Some other universe of cool. Truth is she loves drama just like everybody else. Issa-Or is out on the hunt, hot on the trail. 

In a proper tone of voice, like a good boy who raises his hand to talk, Cobb tells her, “I think these chiller coils are icing up and that’s why they’re cracking. What do you suppose?”

“Cobb.”

“I’m going to guess, it’s an impeded airflow.” 

“ _Cobb_.”

Placing a grimy hand on his bosom, Cobb blinks at her and says, “I’m out here to do _work_ , Issa-Or.” 

“Cobb don’t pretend with me—”

“I ain’t pretendin, I’m on the schedule just like anybody else.”

Issa-Or flashes a grin of filed teeth. “Cobb Vanth,” she growls, “I know you wanna talk about the Mandalorian.”

So be it. Let the pretense drop away then.

“Dammit I do,” Cobb warns her, low, “but you are _not_ ready for that conversation.”

“Oh Cobb,” she howls. “I knew it. I knew you wanted to fuck him.”

“ _And_ give him a bath!” 

“What the hell, Cobb, give him a ba- _bath_.” Her husky voice dissolves into a low tone chortle.

“With the _good_ water too, not water from these piece of shit vaps.” Cobb slaps the housing shut on Unit 1-B. “I got it all worked out, see, Mando comes back dusty and hurt. Needs a place to stay. Needs someone he could trust. A friend.”

“Oh is that what he needs.”

“To start with, sure.”

“He comes aaall the way back here, so you can tug him off. Oh no.”

“Oh _yes_ he does, cause he knows what’s good for him. We had a connection. What we had don’t happen every day.”

“I almost can’t believe you.”

Cobb lets his eyes get all crazy. Just to have fun, but also cause if he doesn’t let this all out he’s gonna explode. “I have this whole scenario. I nurse him tenderly back to health. Wash his wounds--” Cobb waves the drill in circles, “--probably put some medicinal salve on him--” pointing with the drill now “--but none of that shit from the Mos Ila clinic. That shit itches.”

Issa-Or just shakes with silent laughter.

“And I don’t think that guy’s a real doctor,” Cobb says, come to think of it. “Now don’t you look at me like that, you let this monster out of the pit.”

He picks up his duffel like he’s got places to be, just the next vap over, but all the same. At this point though he can’t help grinnin, and Issa-Or just slides down the side of 1-B laughing for real now.

“Have you been bottling this up the whole time, Cobb? No, no, don’t answer that.”

“If you insist. But could I interest you in the part where we grow old together, sitting on the porch in our rocking chairs with a shotgun?”

“Cobb.”

“And the lil green guy comes home from Space College to visit us. And we are _so_ proud.” He lets his voice crack and wobble.

“Cobb Vanth.” 

He gets all juicy in it now. Just going all out with it; he loves Issa-Or’s reaction and it’s been a while since they had some good dumb fun around here. “I been askin myself, what’s a Mandalorian wedding like? They gotta be fun as hell, don’t you think?”

“Lots of drinking, firing off weapons. They probably fucking shoot someone.”

“Well we can fuckin shoot Michkee, I’m tired of his shit.” 

Issa-Or kicks her duffel over. “You’ve carried this burden a while, Cobb. I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”

“Well, it’s taken me some time to come up with some real good little scenarios, so that’s all right.”

Now she’s got to go find something serious in this, don’t do that Iz. She gets a thoughtful cast and says, “You know… I think Tai-ya might go your way. I could ask—”

“Uh-uh, nobody from the town. And I got boots older than him. I’ll just have to die alone, the _last of my kind_.” Got to make that statement real dramatic for effect.

“Cobb, there’s at least half a dozen men like you in Anchorhead alone.”

“Aw but I fucked all’a them!” 

Issa-Or just chuckles. 

“Anyways, Iz, I don’t tease you ‘bout the schoolteacher, do I?”

“Only all the time, you asshole.”

“Well, you like her, she likes you, I don’t see what’s so complicated.”

“I respect her, and I don’t want to make things weird. She’s doing good for the town. And you say anything to her, Cobb, I’ll kill you— like I should have done.”

They grin at each other.

“What’s brought this on, anyway?” Cobb asks. “About the Mandalorian.”

“Pammar said he saw one up at Mos Ila, so, it had me thinking.”

Cobb tenses. It was fun and games until-- “Our one?”

“No, a blue one— and she had her helmet off.” 

Huh. Cobb says, carefully, “I thought they don’t take their helmets off.”

“Maybe she wasn’t a Mandalorian,” says Issa-Or, all cool again. “Just a faker like you I guess.”

“Well. If we’re going up that way anyway… might be we’ll find out.”

Some months had gone by since the krayt dragon incident. Cobb and Issa-Or had put on a brave face for the sake of the town, a united front. But between the two of them, passing a bottle back and forth in the lounge of Cobb’s home, they drew up plans for whatever fresh hell was going to come down the way. It was always something, out here. Always had been.

The Red Key slavers come back? The hutts send a new boss? The Sand People attack as soon as the Razor Crest vanished from sight? A hundred new sarlacc spores? An ancient evil beneath the sand?

Always something.

But the Red Key hadn’t been seen around here since Cobb ran them out. No hutts, either, not yet. Maybe they thought twice about Tatooine, now that the riff-raff didn’t fear them. Turns out all it took to shatter the immortal supremacy of Jabba Tiure was one pissed-off young lady in a metal bikini. 

As for the ghorfa, which is what the Sand People are actually called— seems like the Blue Urusai Clan was as sick of fighting as Mos Pelgo. Maybe all it took was that mysterious outsider to join their hands in peace.

It seemed like Mos Pelgo might have a future after all. Hard for Cobb to ever think ahead in something so distant as weeks or months. Hard for a lot of them. It had been a lifetime of single days, of single work shifts, each endured one by one in blaring sun or cramped tunnels you couldn’t even stand up in. A lifetime cut short by spreading lesions and sudden weight loss. Fingernails falling off. Hair falling out. Blindness. Blood from the mouth. Seizures and a lingering death.

If you were lucky, the mines would collapse and kill you right off— and if you weren’t, you’d suffer pinned underground til your air or water ran out.

But that old Corellian bastard was gone. The Empire was gone. The Red Key gone. Dragon gone. And for once it looked like you could build a life on ground that stopped its shaking.

Cobb was sorry to let go of that beskar, but then, maybe he didn’t need it. Maybe he never did. Sure was a bitch to lose that jetpack, though. Time to time he thought of the Mandalorian, and where he was now, and if he’d found his people. Funny thing, if Mando had just waited around some, maybe he could have met them here.

Wonder what they were up to.

 _There were armored people flying around the mesa_ , Tai-ya tells Cobb and his deputy at the noon meal back in town. He’d brought out a bowl of his sister’s flame-hot spicy stew and a jug of cold tea for sharing. They tear off pieces of bread together beneath the shade of a red and silver canopy. _I thought they were Mandalorians._

 _That so, T’shad Mesa?_ Cobb remarks in the same language, a ryl dialect known by most people enslaved by the old Corellian. 

Young deputy Huru turns a vibroknife slowly in his hand. _Pammar saw one at Mos Ila_ , he says. _It wasn’t ours, unless he was a teenaged girl all along._

 _Who knows, he seemed like a man with many secrets,_ Cobb says in a mysterious voice, like the kind his grandmother would get as she whispered her tales. _What did you see, Tai-ya?_

_Jet packs, a few vehicles. A ship. I didn’t get a good look from below. I was coming back from New Zaroshe and just wanted to get home._

Cobb asks about the ship, but Tai-ya shrugs with a ripple of lekku. He doesn’t know much about ship types. Just bikes! 

This is more to Huru’s particular interest. To him, either their Mando will come back or he won’t. Those Mandos will come here or they won’t. 

So Cobb smiles and leans in on the table. _Well, Tai-ya, tell us how she handled— your new Aratech Blur!_

* * *

Come late afternoon the trade crews head up to Mos Ila. Cobb puts Deputy Huru in charge back at town and Deputy Zaeka on the LIUV. He’ll hop along just as an extra hand. Good to train up the young people, and, anyways, maybe he can get in a nice nap on the way over. Nothing like the smooth hum of a KDY transport skiff to nod you off.

Two LIUVs hitched with goods, and some young folk on speeders for guard duty. These days, didn’t need as much extra security as before, but it was good for them to get out of town. Mostly a bunch of longbody Lhosan custom bikes, some of them painted up with wild graphics. They were gonna be parked out front a bar or two later tonight, most like— best not at Brajona’s joint, that’s where Cobb liked to let loose.

Cobb conserves his strength for such an occasion. Sleeps the whole way across the eastbound Jundland sands, tucked in between Issa-Or’s duffel and three crates of tu-neh fruits. He’s got his laminoid armor humped up for a pillow. It’s no beskar, for sure, but it’ll do. 

The first sun’s setting by the time they reach Mos Ila, and the cliffs glow red above the outpost. Urusai launch from their colonies in the outcropping, and they swoop and loft in flashes of gold. A freighter is coming in low on the eastern side of the city. Everybody’s gearing up for market day tomorrow.

The Mos Pelgo crew always slaps up a stall by the Monzu jawa clan. Be fun to shoot the breeze with Jomai and his folk tomorrow, see what nonsense they’ve been getting up to. This evening’s just for getting into the city, getting set up with lodging.

Watered by springs and cradled by mountains, Mos Ila sure made itself an attractive location. Sentients had lived here for centuries, even thousands of years, if there was any truth to the stories his grandmother told him. Problem with Mos Ila was just that, too— it was nice enough to want, and easy enough to hold onto once you had it. The B’anek family manse watched over the town from the cliffs, and they made their minions keep the peace. The B’anek family saved the worst of their drama for the rest of the Rim; planetside they didn’t interfere overmuch, so long as all the other little gangs paid their dues, and so long as nobody else tried to horn in on their spice trade. Just how it was. In the absence of power all sorts filled that vacuum.

Mos Ila looks its best in the red light of sunset: the vibrant canopies, silks, and banners, the stucco and pourcrete domes gleaming like amber. Folk gather around as the day cools off, and already somebody’s started to strike up some music. 

The Mos Pelgo LIUVs nose their way into the bumble of traffic, along with repulsor-craft, wheeled vehicles, and various animals. Beasts of burden grumble along the hilly up-and-down of the city streets. Baskets sway and strain as a ronto rears back, spooked by the zip of an upright Joko speeder. Huru’s got a stand-up bike like that, a Longspur Pacer, and Cobb’s always thought they looked dumb as hell.

Cobb’s own baby, his modded-out aftermarket menace, she’s set in follow-mode alongside the KDY. When the time is right, he parts ways with the LIUVs and him and Issa-Or zoom off to the metals fab. Once they hit the sidestreets where it widens out, it’s game on for the two of them. _You might as well sell that piece of shit when you get there!_ he yells at her, and her Aratech Techno snarls back in reply.

He lets her win, though, or at least that’s what he tells himself. Could be the trick of his imagination, or the hopeful yearnings of a silly old man, but he thinks for a moment there he has seen the glint of beskar in the crowd.

* * *

They get an estimate for Unit 1-B. Cobb couldn’t be more robbed if you just run his pockets in the street. They got to get a part from offworld, for forcesake. When Issa-Or asked who got the last coils from Mos Espa, the fab dealer says— Mos Pelgo did! 

“We just replaced those coils, too,” Cobb says as they walk their bikes back. 

“We’re going to have to replace the whole unit,” Issa-Or mutters. The spot markings on her face start to pinch in with a frown. He hopes she doesn’t have one of her headaches coming on. She gets those, since her injury, one of her lekku reduced to a scarred-over stump. “It’ll be cheaper in the long run. At least it’ll be like the others.”

“I’m not gonna let that piece of junk win, not yet. I’ll talk to Jomai tomorrow, see what he’s got. He can find anything.”

Issa-Or wants to be in a mood. Cobb bumps her. 

_Don’t you mess with me,_ she warns him.

“Do you wanna be mad, or do you wanna get drinks?”

In a pronounced, sulky way, Issa-Or pouts, “I wanna be mad.” He’s always admired her pointy teeth. Not just anyone can pull off that look. Then she swings up on her bike and tells him, “I’ll catch up with you at the Pig. I want to stop by cybertech, and one of us should check in on the young people.” 

Starting to get dark as Cobb navigates back to the entertainment quarter. Automatic lights and old-fashioned torches light the way, but out of the blurring shadow comes an unwelcome figure.

Aw, hell, it’s Golgo, wide-eyed and grinning, his face radiant as the suns. He's barefoot with only a length of banner wrapped around his body a couple times. Looks like the holoweave ad banner off a vegetable stall. 

“Marshal Vanth!” he cries out. 

Cobb lays off the throttle some. Here it comes. “Hey, Golgo.”

“Have you come to join our meditation group?”

“Just here to sell our goods and get by.”

“Why only get by… when you can thrive? We can only be truly enriched by the Life Wind, the Force of All Souls.”

“Well that's just nice.”

With a truly beatific smile, Golgo pronounces, “There is no emotion, there is peace.”

“I’m happy for you, man, and I’m happy you’re hanging out around here and not at Mos Pelgo. I like that, I like that a lot. Keep up that good work.”

“There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.”

“Now I got someplace important to be.”

Golgo starts reciting something about passion and serenity but Cobb zips away.

“The force will set you free, Marshal,” Golgo calls out after him, and Cobb Vanth thinks how nice that is, really, that Golgo got some religion at last. He sure was acting up just a year back, and shoot! You never would have thought anything would have set him on that narrow way. Rumor has it Golgo was trying to smuggle Csilla Ice Madness inside himself when the packet burst open. A dose like that would surely kill somebody, but, well, funny how things turn out, don’t it?

The Force works in mysterious ways.

On the way to Brajona’s cantina, his favorite of all the dive bars of Mos Ila, Cobb feels eyes on him. Two ghorfa watch him intently from where their mounts are tied. 

That’s their proper name, he’s found out, you can’t go round calling them Sand People. He’s found out a lot about them since Mando came by and made peace. Truth is he never knew how much they’d come to mean to Mos Pelgo, them, the jawas, and the townsfolk, all of them getting by together in a harsh desert set against them. Feels right.

So Cobb smiles kindly at them and places his hand over his heart— they’re waving at him a little excited now, and he waves on back, his thoughts aglow with the prospect of a good whisky sour.

* * *

Cobb had been going to the Lucky Pig Cantina for some years now. Best music and best atmosphere in all of Mos Ila, and maybe Eisley and Espa too. A former mercenary captain, Brajona Headsplitter had emerged from the collapse of House Tiure and strode into a new future of entertainment, mixed drinks, and the occasional bar fight to the death.

It’s a swinging night in there, a packed house, and Cobb walks the street into a world of throbbing sound.

A Mos Ila favorite dominates the stage, a strong sinewy young man with a bandit mystique. He’s a miraluka, and they all wear those fringed masks in their culture, but for Cobb it sparks a little thrill of excitement. Something about a mask making you want to know more— maybe Cobb’s got a type. The low voice of the singer booms you deep in the bones, and Cobb likes the way his tight leather pants gleam in the stage lights. He’s always been meaning to see if he can get with this fella. 

The night is young yet!

Some rough-and-tumble spacers in the mix tonight. They’re all in somewhat-matching flightsuit colors, all with the same sleen-tail logo. Cobb catches the familiar rhythm of spoken ryl as he cuts by a table of twi'lek gunslingers, but the words don’t quite decipher. They might be offworlders, a different culture than the folk of Mos Pelgo. 

A game of pazaak is underway, and Cobb senses some drama and opportunity. A ring of onlookers tenses round the table, and the faces of the players are a study in tension. There’s a rattataki gentleman flipping through his hand of cards, the black-on-white face markings accentuating his troubled grimace. Cobb spots a regular and delights in his misfortunes. The soft lights of the table sconces can’t hide the slick of sweat on Gadi’s brow. Maybe a taste of his own medicine making that ol cheater sick. 

Somebody’s pet orokeet is getting into a zabrak’s fat stack of chips. Just testing the edge with its beak and tongue-tip. Shooed away, the brilliant bird flashes through the bridge lights.

Cobb sees a girl too young to be in here. A protective instinct starts to rear up on its haunches— but no, Brajona wouldn’t let a thing like that happen here. Maybe he’s misread the situation.

Girl’s human, maybe teenage, wearing a jumpsuit and a decided frown. Hair in tight braids. She’s going over a datapad, uninterested in the nightlife around her. There’s— well holy hell. There’s a togorian sitting with her— a cat man! The table-lights throw a gleam on his patterned golden fur. Cobb has never seen one in real life. He’s got a similar flightsuit, so they might be crew together. Their eyes meet; Cobb gives a friendly nod. A jeweled cat eye winks back at him. 

Cobb bellies up to the bar as the miraluka ends his set. Some applause, and the full force of cantina chatter comes back while the new act posts up onstage. The massive and powerful shape of a gamorrean clan matron lumbers up in Cobb’s peripheral, leaned on the counter like he is. He turns with a crooked grin. He's fixing to ask her about the Mandalorian rumors, since she's always in the know about everything.

Brajona pours him one, right off. “It’s on the house,” she grunts. “You got twenty minutes to get off-planet. Thirty, tops.”

Cobb looks up shocked from the shot glass. This was not how he expected his night to kick off. “Am I no longer welcome in this establishment?” 

A toothy, tusky smile, but there’s no humor in it. “It’s not up to me,” Brajona tells him.

“Your house, your rules, I get it, but if this is about the last time— ”

She fixes him right in the eye, and he don’t like it. “A bounty came down on you just now. I don’t want that drama under this roof.”

“First of all, you love drama, it’s good for business.” The words are out of his mouth before his good sense can pick through what he wants to say. “Second— I’m not worried about a bounty. Know what, it’s even expected. It’s those Red Key jackasses. I’ll be happy to tie that loose end.” He toasts her with his glass.

Brajona holds out a hand behind her, and Missy from behind the bar is passing her a datapad. Missy cringes at him, mouthing ‘I’m sorry, Cobb.’ Now he’s always liked her, a sweet rodian girl.

Cobb throws back his drink, coughs, sniffs, and says, “Look, I’m— truth is,” damn his nose is gonna run, “I’m touched you’re concerned about me. I always liked this place best. Good drinks, the live music… you’re the best bartender, and a man’s relationship with his bartender, now that’s a sacred thing—”

Brajona shoves the datapad in his face.

Well, shit.

“That’s a lot of zeroes on the end,” Cobb murmurs. “That can’t be right.”

“We double-checked it. That’s it for you. That kind of money? Every bounty hunter on the planet will come gunning for you. Every raider, every spacer. And Mos Pelgo can’t keep you safe, not even if they wanted to.”

Cobb’s ears start to roar. He feels his spirit start to slip free from his body. “Who else knows?” With a weird twinge he scans for that teen girl and the togorian in the cantina crowd. Both gone. He's got this notion...

“They'll all know, not before long.”

“You’re not gonna have a go?” A paranoid glance down at the empty shot glass. On the house, she’d said.

Brajona snorts. “We’d never see that money.”

“Then,” Cobb says, pushing the shot glass up the counter with his fingers, “could I get another?”

“For the road, then. Get offworld while you can. Just get the hell out of my bar.” 

All at once he realizes: those ghorfa out front with their banthas tied up. They weren’t waving hello how-ya-do. _Go back, go back,_ is what they were saying. And when he’d just waved at them nice, that last little hand motion they did was a clear-as-day _whatthefuck_. Damn he might have known!

It’s starting to happen. Here we go. The mood begins to shift in the cantina. Conversations coming to a close. Folk looking down at datapads and commlinks. Looking down, looking up. Eyes searching for something in the drifting veils of bar smoke.

The new band’s stopped playing; the bass player leans in to say something to lead vocals.

Someone points at Cobb as he slips back through the kitchen.

Oh damn and they’re cooking his favorite too, the smell hitting him in a rush. Wonder if he could get a look at how the house makes its dipping sauce. He’s been trying to crack that riddle for nigh on five years now.

He tries to get on the comms with Issa-Or, whispering tightly over the hiss of the fryer. 

Her words crackle over the unit in bursts of static. “Cobb— bounty— got to get—”

It’s the panic in her voice. He’s only heard that once before, the night the fire went up in their master’s villa.

In the full heat of the fryers and ovens, Cobb washes over cold, and ice stops up his veins.

Dizzy he goes out the back into the streets. A shimmering buzzes in his ears, and just in time he flattens against an HVAC pipe. A Talon Cutter smokes by with armed men on the running boards. They didn’t see him.

Mercs in twos and threes starting to filter through the entertainment district. A rider astride a giant reptile yanks the reins hard and brings her about, leaning down from the saddle to bark at some townsfolk. 

Someone mimes Cobb’s height and points to the Lucky Pig.

Engines a low roar in the distance, and a spacecraft coming down in hot lights.

Cobb shuts his eyes. Clears his senses. Feels Mos Ila, all its pourcrete domes and crumbling stucco, its narrow alleys, its bustling markets. His hand falls meditatively to the pebbly green hide of his K-16’s holster.

Well, time to die as he lived— like a stupid son of a bitch.


End file.
